When news of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., broke, I felt a punch to the gut, a nauseating feeling I hadn't really experienced since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It was like this for many parents and teachers throughout South Florida on Friday.

"I'm sick," said a sobbing Carmen Raedlescu, as she picked up her son Daniel, a first-grader, from Dania Elementary.

President Barack Obama paused and wiped away tears when he spoke of the "beautiful little kids" who would not be celebrating birthdays, graduations and other milestones.

"Our hearts are broken today," he said.

There have been so many other shooting massacres in our country through the years. Columbine. Virginia Tech. Aurora.

But this might be the worst of all.

When I saw pictures of children being led from Sandy Hook Elementary with anguished looks on their faces, I couldn't help but see my own daughter.

And then I imagined the kids in the classroom, bloodied and crumpled, 11 days before Christmas.

And then I imagined their parents as they were told.

And then I cried. I called my ex-wife. She was crying, too.

It wasn't my day to pick up Natalia, but I asked if it would be all right to tag along for dismissal. I said I wanted to talk to parents and teachers for my column.

What I really wanted to do was hug my girl. Hard.

There was a startling disconnect when the final bell rang at 2 p.m. Most of the parents knew about the shooting. But the teachers and kids did not. For them it was just a routine Friday, with no special announcement about the events.

"We think it's appropriate that parents be the ones who handle this with their kids," said Broward school district spokesperson Nadine Drew.

There was no police presence outside the school at dismissal, just the usual crossing guard.

Neither I nor Natalia's mom had the heart to tell my daughter about the tragedy. Not yet. I'm a little unsure about how to proceed. So are the teachers.

When I told Ms. Harmer, my daughter's teacher, what happened, she was stunned: "It's just so hard to come to terms with. Whoever did this just messed with an entire school's psyche, a whole community's future. …The only way to go forward is to rely on your faith, but when something like this happens you wonder what in the world could God's message be?"

Ms. Rocha said: "We have fire drills, disaster drills, but how could you explain how to prepare for something like this to a 5-year-old? All you'd do is scare them." She said schools have gotten more and more security conscious. "They even want us to have our windows covered with paper so people can't look in," she said.

She said she doesn't know what she'll do come Monday if one of her students asks, "Did you hear about those kids?" Ms. Rocha said she'd consult with administrators. "Maybe our social worker or counselor can come in and give a little talk," she said. Later, she texted me, "I need to make sure my children feel safe in my care … Five and six year old children do not need to know any news that will make them feel scared to go to school."

In some ways Friday felt like a tipping point, an event so traumatic that policy changes with respect to gun laws — or at least automatic weapons — can no longer be brushed aside. President Obama alluded to it when he spoke of taking "meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics."

Ms. Rocha wonders if that's possible: "If someone has this kind of mentality — if they're sick in the brain and are able to plan things out — they'll still find a way to get whatever they need to get."